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The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Friday said fifty-seven areas in Metro Manila were placed under granular lockdowns, a day after the government starts implementation of a pilot quarantine policy.

Almost all Local Government Units (LGU) in the National Capital Region have “granular lockdowns” base on the report given by the Philippine National Police-National Capital Regional Police Office (PNP-NCRPO), DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya disclose during a public briefing.

Malaya however did not list the locked down NCR areas.

The government defines granular lockdown as “micro-level quarantine for areas classified as ‘critical zones’ by the local government unit.”

“Doon sa sinasabing issue tungkol sa warning, nasa kamay na po ‘yan ng mga local government units kung anong klaseng warning ang kanilang gagawin,” Malaya said.

“We will leave it now to the discretion of the local government units kung sila ba ay biglang magla-lockdown lamang o magbibigay sila ng advanced warning (if they will immediately implement lockdowns or they will give advanced warning),” Malaya added.

Metro Manila is currently under Alert Level 4. Based on the government’s new guidelines, areas under Alert Level 4 — the second highest alert level in the new scheme — are those with COVID-19 case counts that are high or increasing while total beds and ICU beds are at high utilization rate.

Malaya emphasized that areas to be placed under granular lockdown were critical nodes, where there was clustering of cases and active transmission of COVID-19.

Netizens had earlier appealed for a notice from the local government before imposing the granular lockdown on a particular area to allow the affected residents to prepare.

Malaya in a separate interview said that the enforcement of Alert Level 4 in Metro Manila was so far “good.”